A typical emergency services vehicle today has numerous devices that use audio inputs and generate audio outputs. They include two-way radios, scanners, AM/FM radios, PA systems, Doppler radar tones, computer input and output, etc. In most cases each piece of equipment that generates output will have its own speakers and each piece of equipment that requires input will have its own microphone.
The proliferation of speakers and microphones (and often the equipment to which they are attached) in the passenger compartment leads to clutter and confusion. The audio outputs are not coordinated with each other, so a low priority output might drown out a high priority output. Similarly, it may be difficult to locate the correct microphone for a particular device.
One of the reasons that vehicles may have multiple two-way radios is that different emergency services may communicate on different bands, thus requiring a separate radio for each service. A consequence of this is that when several emergency services arrive at a site, they may not all be able to talk to each other. The situation is exacerbated when the workers leave their vehicles and carry handheld radios, which typically service a single band each.
Large agencies have command vehicles that contain specialized equipment (repeaters) to receive signals on one band and retransmit them on another. These vehicles are deployed to sites as needed, to allow the different services to communicate with each other.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for an automobile that integrates all of the audio signaling, and eliminates redundant speakers and microphones. The system and method should also allow any vehicle to become a repeater using two-way radios already present.